Night of all Souls - Halloween Quest 2015 - Quest and Achievement Guide
Overview
The Halloween Quest 2015 takes you into modified versions of the Tarantia Common District, the Tarantia Noble District and the Catacombs. You'll face diseased, zombie like citizens and Nemedian soliders.
A straight run without any resetting to get rare bosses takes about 25 minutes. The scenario is broken into three parts; after each scenario you can take a break and continue later on by talking to Hadrathus.
The scenario zones can be entered with a group other players, but can also easily done alone, too.
The scenario features one quest and two achievements,
- one for finding a total of nine special loot bags and
- one for killing a total of three rare bosses.
If you complete both achievements, you'll get a special social armor.
This guide aims to get you through the whole scenario, getting all loot and achievements in one run. If you are not interested in the achievement, you can skip everything about loot bags and rare bosses.
The rare bosses seem to have a spawn chance of about 1 in 3.
I've made a video with a "perfect" run of the scenario, perfect meaning with all three rare bosses. It can be seen here:
https://youtu.be/3J78bvdYkyY
The video is especially helpful to find the rare loot bags. It is not meant to be an example of how to play a conqueror, I pretty much suck at that class and was fighting with crashes, bad ping and constant interruptions during the filming.
Loot and Rewards
As a quest reward and random loot, you can get
- Halloween PvE Candy, which gives +50% XP for 1 hour,
- Halloween PvP Candy, which gives +50% XP for 1 hour,
- Halloween AA Candy, which gives +50% AA XP for 1 hour.
Rare loot bags and boss loot can also include
- Tainted Meat, which gives 25k AA XP.
As a quest reward, you get
- 1x Halloween Candy of each kind,
and can choose between
- Rosary of Barbaric Memorabilia, a social amulet with several small animal skulls,
- Nemedian Abacus, another social amulet with a mummified hand,
- Hood of the Hallowed Name, a social cloak with a unique, cowl like appearance and
- 1x Tainted meat.
The first time you complete the quest, you also get
- two Gilding Tokens.
If you complete all the achievements, you'll also get
- 110 achievement points,
- the titel "Hand of Asura" and
- 1x Shawl of Asuran Wrath, a social chest armor looking like a black tunic. It looks similar to the Red Hand Tunic, but with a white skull instead of a read one, and can be worn with trousers.
The Shawl and Hood can be seen in the video at 22 minutes 24 seconds.
Starting the Quest
The quest starts at a NPC called Hadrathus in Old Tarantia, near the entrance to the Common District.
The quest is repeatable with a cooldown of 16 hours.
Part I: Tarantia Common District - Night
After starting the quest, you'll find yourself in the Tarantia Common District. The populace has turned from their normally welcoming and helpful attitude to mindless bloodlust.
Run or fight your way to just before the end of the first street, to a place where a palette and a fountain can be found.
Here, you'll have to defend yourself against several waves of enemies. Wave may be a bit overdrawn, though, as they spawn pretty slowly, more like a drip than a wave.
Most enemies are pretty straightforward. A special type, though, deverves mentioning, the "Volatile Husk". These zombie like creatures move close to you, then start a cast, at the end of which they explode. As they do not move during the cast, move away from them before it finishes.
At the end of this encounter, a rare boss can spawn, Porcius the Ghastly, just before you get the quest step to inspect the fountain, shown in the video at 3 minutes 30 seconds.
If he did not spawn, you can reset the instance to get another chance, as follows:
- Delete the quest.
- Teleport out of the district, best to Old Tarantia, Tarantia Common District or Iron Tower.
- Return to Hadrathus and start the quest again.
Update: Yorgomir (#6) has posted another, for some even quicker/easier way to find the rare bosses below. Check it out - it actually works!
Update: Sometimes, bosses aren't counted correctly for the achievement without any apparent pattern. Best check after each kill and repeat the kill if it wasn't registered. The second are boss, Valentinus, may be more affected than others, so be extra careful after killing him that the kill actually was registered. Any information on this is welcome!
Update:Boss No 2, Valentinus, not counting, may be caused by not completing the previous quest step at Hadrathus. Worked for me to fix the issue.
After having killed him (or skipped him), inspect the fountain.
Now, we want to collect the rare loot bags, which can be found at coordinates
- 580, 860, at the end of the street, to your right hand side, behind some chests, shown in the video at 4 minutes 00 seconds,
- 664, 890, in the shrine room, to the right hand side, shown in the video at 4 minutes 20 seconds,
- 855, 840, in the guard house, far right corner, besides a smal cupboard, shown in the video at 7 minutes 05 seconds.
After you've finished all of your business here, return to the district entrance, talk to Hadrathus and leave the district.
Part II: Tarantia Noble District - Night
After six years of fighting, conan still hasn't managed to clear the Nemedians out of his front yard. This has enraged the Nobles so much they're berserking and attack everything in sight (except each other and, for some reason, the Nemedians). Or it may have to do something with the quest (TLDR).
Anyhow, there're scores of enemies here. Luckily, you can run past most of them.
Advance along the first street until you reach Hadrathus. Talk to him.
A rare boss can spawn across the bridge, in the garden to the left hand side, Valentinus the once Revered, shown in the video at 8 minutes 55 seconds.
If you want to get the Achievement, run there, check if he spawned. If not, you can reset the instance with the following steps:
- DO NOT delete the quest.
- Teleport out of the district, best to Old Tarantia, Tarantia Common District or Iron Tower.
- Return to Hadrathus and continue the quest again, using the talk option "I seem to have lost my way."
This gets you into a completely fresh instance of the Noble District (Night). The instance can (and should) be resetted as often as needed to spawn Valentinus.
After he has mysteriously died from Cut-Throat-Syndrome, check for the rare loot bags, which can be found at coordinates
- 960, 1190, in the street behind Hadrathus below a tree, shown in the video at 9 minutes 55 seconds,
- 1041, 1171, in the tent where Valentinus can spawn, shown in the video at 9 minutes 20 seconds,
- 1045, 1127, below a tree in the western half of the cemetary, shown in the video at 10 minutes 50 seconds.
Now, skip or fight your way to the Catacomb entrance. Again, waves of enemies will attack. When they're gone, enter the Catacombs.
Part III: The Catacombs
Scores of Nemedian soldiers have made the mistake to be here at the same time when you come along. This includes regular old melee fighters, HoXes and casters. As they are quite numerous and there are few points to reset them, one actually has to be a bit more careful here.
Clear the whole first floor. You'll get a key in the right hand section, from some talkative Nemedians.
The first special loot bag can be found here,
- in the room with the talkative / key holding Nemedians, in the far right corner besidnes a table, shown in the video at 16 minutes 30 secounds.
Take the key, open the gate to the lower level.
Here, the second special loot bag waits for us,
- at the bottom of the right hand stairs, shown in the video at 17 minutes 50 seconds.
Climb up the ladder and advance through the catacombs until you reach a throne room - the one where the boss is in the "normal" Catacombs. Here, a rare boss can spawn, called Livius the Lurid, shown in the video at 19 minutes 15 seconds.
If he did not spawn, you can reset the dungeon with the same procedure as with the Noble District:
- DO NOT delete the quest.
- Teleport out of the district, best to Old Tarantia, Tarantia Common District or Iron Tower.
- Return to Hadrathus and continue the quest again, using the talk option "I seem to have lost my way."
After some more killing, you'll find a huge room with the final boss. Before attacking him, I advise to get the final loot bag - it is easy to forget once you've killed the boss. It can be found
- in the final boss room, opposite the boss, on an alchemy table, shown in the video at 20 minutes 24 seconds.
Kill the boss. He has several special abilities and spawns adds. I just bursted him down, but with some classes and equipment, one might have to pay attention and use the pillars to kite him or avoid his AoE.
After the boss is dead, Hadrathus appears again, gives you a quest reward (see above) and teleports you back to Old Tarantia.
When you've completed all the achievements, you'll now get the aforementioned black tunic.
Review
Personally, I like the new scenario, at least compared to the last scenario Vanaheim. It's no breakthrough in MMO design, but a solid 5/10.
The good:
- Can be entered with a group. This is nice for socially minded players - it's a multiplayer game after all.
- Can be done solo. Good for grumpy, impatient people like me.
- Lots of fighting, no Mario Brothers style platform games, puzzles or other challenges unusual to the genre.
- Boss fights are tough, but straightforward, not much scripted stuff.
- No really powerful loot, but consumable XP boosters are nice for everybody.
- Five new social item design, which all look quite nice or at least unique.
- The achievement tunic can be worn with trousers, contrary to all other tunics.
The bad:
- The "defend yourself" fights could be harder. I actually got bored because the enemies spawn so slowly. It might be better to autspawn them some seconds after you've killed the last wave.
- Reused content, but in my opinion more tasteful than with Vanaheim. The locations are supposed to be the same ones, so it makes sense for them to be copies, whereas in Vanaheim, for some reason their Jarl build a complete copy of Atzel's Fortress. Same building company or what?
The ugly:
- No clipping textures, transparent walls or other quality problems as with Vanaheim.
- The cowl/cloak reward looks weird in my opinion, but that's a personal view.
Suggestions:
- Give premium players permanent access to the scenario. It must have been some work to complete it, letting it go to waste 11 out of 12 months would be a waste.
- Add a Hard Mode, with all mobs at level 83, and the last dropping three HM tokens.
- Finally allow [img] code in the raid/quest sections. A guide like this is more helpful and much more appealing when it can include pictures.
Resetting the Halloween instances, alternative way
there is another way to reset the instances than teleporting out of the instances / deleting the quest:
1st - Porcius the Chastly (Common night):
- he spawns inside the place where Phaxus is standing in the normal version of Common's ~656, 885
- it's the ~11th mob you kill out of 12 for this part of the quest
- there is one more Volatile Husk ("spontanous combustion" guy) after him, actually already comming during the fight IIRC
so, when the boss is *not* spawning but the placeholder (Putrescent Rager):
- kill him fast
- avoid the Volatile Husk during the fight/on your way to either end of the area (if you kill him, the quest updates and you need to delete and redo it completely)
- log off and wait until your character really logged-out (5 minutes)
- best practise: log in another toon and wait for the message "xxx has logged off" in guild chat
after you re-logged in, you need to do this part again from the start (beware that the mobs will re-spawn, so better logg off at a save spot)
- repeat as often until the boss spawned
2st - Valentinus the Once Revered (Noble night):
- he is in a tent close by Tremerus, ~1035, 1165
- if he's not there but his placeholder, kill him and move to the hill ~1015, 1185
- logg off and wait 5 minutes (see above)
- after re-logged in, the mobs are back
- repeat as often until the boss spawned
3rd - Livius the Lurid (Catacombs night):
- he is just in front of the iron chair where you killed Commander Zoria in the normal version of Catacombs (Breaking the Black Ring) - that is two rooms before the final fight iirc
- you should be able to see if he'S there or not without entering that room
- if he's not there, kill the placeholder and logg out in the hallway leading to that room - this is a safe spot
- logg off and wait 5 minutes (see above)
- after re-logged in, the mobs have re spawned
- repeat as often until the boss spawned
-----
I think this version is faster, since you don't need to fight your way back all the time after porting out...
